nebbian said...

Don't know about cats, but I was onboard a monohull last Friday in around 10 knots windspeed, and was absolutely blown away at how high it could point. Crazy, insane, ridiculous angles!!!

I take it multihulls are worse?

Anyway it impressed me, only having sailed windsurfers before

multi's can't even come close to what a mono can do.

i saw a youtube video of bor90 doing 29 knots.

hmm, the gps was on the arm of a guy on another boat cruising along beside the tri and it was a peak display from a garmin (track points)

now that's accurate stuff

CJW said...
Lets look at downwind. What's a formula board do downwind in 14kts? 23kts boardspeed maybe? and an angle of 135ish Deg (17kts VMG)? Well BOR90 does 26kts VMG in 14kts at an angle of 145 degrees(about 33kts boatspeed...14kts).

I'm not going to weigh-in on "us vs them", but these figures are incorrect -> Formula boards can do 135-145deg at +25kn, in about 14kn.

Also:

GPS-Speedsurfing list of fastest formula says that +30 is achievable (www.gps-speedsurfing.com/default.aspx?mnu=rankings&Year=-&Tab=0&Gender=0&WeightClass=0&AgeClass=0&SpeedType=10).

The StarBoard Serenity can do 3x windspeed apparently (see: www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=20401 ...I couldn't find another reference.)

Hi people, first post here
found these quotes at http://www.alinghi.com/en/news/features/index.php?idIndex=227&idContent=21769

'Butterworth noted that Alinghi 5 is fully loaded in 7 knots of wind. For reference, a V5 sloop was fully loaded in 11 knots of wind. Upwind Alinghi 5 can sail between 35 and 55 degrees true wind angle, which brings the apparent wind angle under 20 degrees, and the sheeting angle for the headsail can be 5 degrees. Upwind boatspeed is generally between 16 and 20 knots.'

"We had one of the sailing team guys out the other day, Will McCarthy, and we were trying to do the reach, which is the most difficult angle for these boats because they accelerate and accelerate," Butterworth says. "Will's sitting on the back and we're doing 36 knots and everyone's talking about the bow and the sails. And he's saying, 'Jesus Christ! Is this right?'"

We used to get some pretty good FW guys out pacing with us on some of the days we were racing the cats. They weren't as quick as the top F16s, F18s, Tornadoes and A Class around the course even when they were well powered up, and we know from the annual race in San Fran that even downwind the FW boards are little if at all quicker than an 18 Foot Skiff. The FW guys from Botany Bay also reckon that the Moths are regularly as quick or quicker than the boards, which would also (after cross-referencing the classes) confirm that the FW gear is about as quick as an A Class cat in planing winds. Which is hugely impressive given the size of the board, but still nothing like as fast as the big multis.

Given the way the VX40 cat beats the Tornado and the rest of the small cats and the 18 Foot Skiff, and the way the 40' Euro lake multis wipe Skiffs and Tornadoes, it's hard to see how the big multis wouldn't wipe any board around a course, until it gets too strong for the big boats to sail.

Remember that old clip of an ORMA 60 tri being paced by a board in strong winds? It looked impressive, until you noted that the tri was just loafing along, compared to what it could do. And that was in good winds for the board, against a tri that's much slower than the AC boats.

About "The StarBoard Serenity can do 3x windspeed apparently (see: www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=20401 ...I couldn't find another reference.)"

Having sailed a Serenity a couple of times, and spent a lot of time on a Lechner and other D2 boards (which were very similar in light stuff but much quicker in a breeze as far as I can judge), I really can't see the Serenity or Lechner coming close in any conditions (apart from when it's too windy for the big boats to venture out, or if the board can pump in winds that are dead calm all the way up those 200' rigs).

There seems to be a lot of hype about the Serenity's speed. There was, for example, a Youtube clip allegedly showing the Serenity beating a bunch of racing dinghies. The interesting point was that since they said what club it was at, you could just go to the results and look them up and notice that the Serenity was normally beaten by 13' singlehanded dinghies - which was pretty much what the vid showed a lot of the time.

It's a great board in very light stuff, but up against boats it would be nothing amazing.

You're kidding!!!

The video of trimaran vs formula - if you look at the tri you will notice its mainsail is reefed! Now was this because it was windy, or to slow down? It doesn't look that windy in the vid, and other snap shots of a windsurfer sailing beside a boat does not mean we are quicker around a course. It just looks good.

Oh for outright speed Hydroptere has done recorded a 50.17 Nautical mile, beating Dunkerbeck's best of 41.14. I would assume hydroptere did its speed in open water (wind speed was 30kts) How many formula sailors are going to do 50 kt NM in 30kts wind in open water Gestalt can you - I know as sure as hell i can't, but i sail a lot more than i post.

that's great Dam,

now if you look back a few pages you will see that it was proven the vmg's of the cup boats are a LOT higher than a formula, i thought that had been put to bed.

as for the vids,

they are awesome, watching the windsurfer sail along beside the big boats is impressive.

no arguemnt about outright speed, the whole hyperthetical was about course racing, hydroptere may be quick in a straight line but again what does that prove, can it sail upwind?

and at what point did i say i could beat hydroptere over a nautical mile? i can fell some words being put in my mouth there. actually, don't recall ever mentioning hydro.....

personally i think this thread has become more about cronyism than hypotheses.

Looks like we're going to have a start, about 20 minutes time. It's about to get real!!

mr love said...


I am a Formula hack but can't get near AMAC on his Moth unless it is 20 knots and thats a 12 ft foiler, these things are 90 ft plus!!! He goes the same speed upwind and 10 degrees higher, downwind I am faster but not enough to make up the deficit.

More practice Martin.

Chris Ting said...

20 knots upwind and 24 knots downwind in 6 - 8 knots.....the question has been answered, NOTHING will keep up with these things

Not even a Water Dragon.

Chris Ting said...

20 knots upwind and 24 knots downwind in 6 - 8 knots.....the question has been answered, NOTHING will keep up with these things

Was it seriously ever really in question ^_^

During the prestart it was really unclear which boat had the advantage, Alinghi started sailing around fully powered up and BMW was just faffing around. Alinghi looked fast and I thought BMW might be in trouble. That was until the approach at the line a few minutes before the start. BMW fully powered up their boat for the first time, two hulls out, flat biscuit....I pretty much shat myself....the power was just insane.

It must be pretty demoralising to realise about 1 minute after the start of the race that you have just wasted 200? million dollars (Alinghi). BMW starting from a 700m deficit due to a pre start fail just sailed higher and faster...and smoked them. 19-22kts upwind in about 6-8 kts of wind, pointing 2-3 degrees higher....dominated. As they said on the commentry...the wing is king.

The speed and the power of these things just defies belief. Didn't see any formula boards on course either

Bring on 15-20kts of wind :D

Yes, 18 - 22 knots up wind and 25 -30 knots downwind. Fox Sport 3.

frant said...
Is it possible for VMG downwind to exceed the wind speed. I don't think so! So they will never beat the free floating balloon downwind.

If you'd been watching it, you would have seen that's exactly what happened -sailing the downwind leg at 25kts in a 6-10kt breeze.

I don't know how it works, but it does.

Nebian and Crazyjockey. Think you might be missing the point. It is definately possible for a sailing craft to exceed wind speed. I reckon that I can easily double the windspeed in 12 knots by hitting 25 knots. Its a question of extracting energy from the windstream. Some craft can extract the energy using windmills to drive a propellor and travel directly against the wind, other wheeled devices may be able to extract energy from the windsteam while travelling directly downwind at greater than the windspeed. A "boat" with "conventional" sails however cannot travel directly to windward and cannot extract energy from the windstream at a VMG downwind greater than windspeed.

We had a good look at the device Nebbian's resurrected a while ago. A few of us had to change our minds and agree that it's not a hoax.

It works on the same fundamentals as a yacht, ie the blades of the propellor are reaching down wind at the angle a sail might do. The gearing and wheels allow the rest of it to go directly downwind. Same VMG for the propellor tips and the chassis, both faster than a balloon.

all i see is the world fasters 90ft cat and the world fastest 90 tri .. i dont know much about the history but shouldnt it be able country v country sailers v sailers .. ****s ridiculouse .. .. change is good but wouldnt 2 canting keeling wingmasted 90ft speed monos be better .. when i wasted the start i missed the normal start procedure how they would play with each other in true match racing spirit .. and if the world ran my way..